tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-300203342014-11-16T10:38:52.463-05:00Cognitive dissonance in Pittsburgh and beyond"When you clock the human race with the stopwatch of history, it's a new record every time" - Firesign Theatre. <br>
Res ipsa loquiturEdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.comBlogger694125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-25549230900993741122014-11-16T09:49:00.001-05:002014-11-16T10:38:52.482-05:00Jack Kelly - vote fraud is REAL - *but only by the Democrats...<p>Today's Jack Kelly column - "<a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/11/16/Jack-Kelly-Vote-fraud-is-not-imaginary/stories/201411160069>Jack Kelly / VOTE FRAUD IS NOT IMAGINARY Yet Democrats keep trying to dismiss it</a>" relies fairly heavily on a study that was published in the Washington Post about non-citizen's voting. I, as one might guess, copied his snarky style in my comment to point out that this study is one of a kind, and relies on data even one or the studies authors admits is fairly suspect. Here is my comment, copied from the PG comment section of Kelly's column (with a little editing). </p> ................................................................................................... <p>If you Google "Jesse Richman and David Earnest:, you will indeed find the Washington Post piece where there talk about their findings. You will also find, a few items down, <a href=http://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/29/fact-checker-noncitizen-voters-swing-senate/18131029/> a fact checking piece from the Reno Gazette-Journal on those findings</a>. That Reno piece discusses how various researchers have questioned Mr Richman's and Mr Earnest's study, and indeed how even Mr Richman concedes the data set is not very good. For example it turns out that people who responded in a similar study who listed themselves as non-citizens had in prior years called themselves citizens. The fact checking article gave the study a four out of ten, and Richman agreed with that rating. </p> <p>That was Jack Kelly's smoking gun. He could have mentioned the doubts about the research, not to mention pointing out this was the only study of its type, but he chose to make his own assertions and accusations. I read at least once about some state out west where Republican local election officials were throwing out absentee ballots from Democratic voters, and the Republican Secretary of State in that state declined to investigate (even though it was caught on film). But Jack Kelly couldn't be bothered to look into that. </p> <p>Mr Kelly quotes "a friend in Chicago" as hard evidence of vote fraud. But the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania could not come up with even one allegation, let alone any convictions for vote fraud in the last ten years in Pennsylvania (when it was defending it's new voter ID law in the State Supreme Court, a case it lost). Just because Republicans/Conservatives scream over and over again about something, that repetition does not make it true. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-77202024143546921852014-10-26T02:55:00.002-04:002014-10-26T02:55:59.061-04:00.Jack Kelly finally talks about the income gap, ... and gets it wrong.<p>Jack Kelly today finally talks about the income gap with <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/10/26/Obama-s-Raw-Deal/stories/201410260063>"Jack Kelly / Obama’s Raw Deal <i>Oligarchs benefit as the middle class lags</i>"</a>. However, as Mr Kelly gets into it, he immediately reverts to form and suggests that Obama'a most important policies are somehow the very ones benefiting the wealthy when in fact they are the ones which particularly benefit the poor and middle class. Kelly goes on to this incredibly hypotritical attack on wealthy Democrats, as if somehow they don't deserve their money. </p> <p>As I often do, I commented on Mr Kelly's column. My comments are below:</p> <p>Mr Kelly talks about how President Obama's hypocritical remarks can not be topped, yet Mr Kelly then goes on to make some incredibly hypocritical remarks himself.</p> <p>Yes, Jack Kelly has finally decided to notice that the Obama administration has been pretty good to Wall Street. Paul Krugman, Glenn Greenwald, Robert Reich, Elizabeth Warren and others have been saying that for years (watch Charles Ferguson's "Inside Job" and note the date ... or don't and stay in your bubble) and wonder where conservatives like Jack Kelly have been. When Mr Kelly provides us with *policies* he identifies as helping Wall Street and/or wealth Democrats, he mentions the stimulus, the ACA and Obama's blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline. These are patently ridiculous examples, and show that Mr Kelly real concern is with making the poor even poorer (and wrecking the environment). </p> <p>The interesting thing is that after so many conservative commenters and Republican politicians have screeched that Democrats/liberals engage in class warfare, Mr Kelly proceeded to imply that liberal millionaires don't deserve their money. Mr Kelly follows the footsteps of Pat Buchanan, who in 1996 ran for President partly using income inequality as part of his shtick. We should all know exactly how well that worked out. Now, too, Mr Kelly does get some numbers right, but mostly seems small and petty. Mr Kelly mentions the difference in middle class contributions to the national economy between 1970 and 2012. I assume that was inadvertent since it was Reagan who many economists credit with starting the increase in the rate of the income gap, and starting the stagnation of middle class wage stagnation at the median. </p> <p>I think most Democrats would agree with Cornell West that there is a problem here, and those who have been talking about it for years are glad national attention is being focused on it. However, we also know that Mr *Obama* himself is also not wrong about the consequences of the Republicans taking control of the Senate. and finally we know that while Obama is responsible for the lack of prosecution of Wall Street bankers, Republican obstructionism is also primarily responsible for the growing income gap.</p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-75715137616387637922014-09-21T14:03:00.001-04:002014-09-21T14:03:43.293-04:00Jack Kelly on September 21st<p>Today's Jack Kelly column, <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/09/21/Poking-the-hornet-s-nest-Islamic-State/stories/201409210097>Jack Kelly / Poking the hornet’s nest: Half measures won’t defeat the Islamic State</a> is interesting in that it re-examines Kelly's view on the the Vietnam war, a war he fought in as a young man. Kelly comes back to some of his favorite themes (if one can judge by how often he brings them up), that the US military could have "won" the war if it had been let off it's leash, and that Congress betrayed the Vietnamese people by not preventing the fall of Saigon a couple of years after we had left. </p> <p>I have to give Kelly this: do I think he is correct that the US military was capable of so devastating the North Vietnamese military such that it would be incapable of launching any sustained military campaign in the South? The answer is yes. In fact, to some extent that is pretty much what we did in Korea a decade or so prior; after suffering an initial defeat, we were able to drive the North Koreans back. Then the Chinese intervened and the Korean "police action" entered a new phase. Would Chinese intervention have happened in the sixties and seventies if we had let the US military annihilate the North Vietnamese military? The fact that Vietnam had several low intensity border skirmishes with China in the late seventies makes that somewhat questionable, but pre "Nixon goes to China" ... who knows? </p> <p>Kelly's point with today's column is that he believes once again, the US military could accomplish the particular mission of destroying ISIS if they were given a free hand. I will say that in this instance, given those parameters, I think Jack Kelly is right.</p> <p>But I think that just defeating ISIS is not, and should not be, a foreign policy in and of itself. I guess Jack Kelly thinks that if you beat the tar out of what is supposed to be a tough opponent, all the other potential opponents will respect you. But I don't think that is necessarily the case. I don't think Saudi Arabia or Nigeria is going to sell us oil cheaper if we beat the tar out of ISIS. In fact, I suspect Saudi Arabia might start jacking up the price of oil, expelling US military personnel and generally siding with the people who don't like us if we thoroughly beat ISIS. Because if we do, I think it will create a whole new recruiting campaign for radical Muslims, who will want to blow up US targets yes, but also targets in countries that are our allies such as Saudi Arabia. Because even if we do beat the snot out of ISIS, it is not clear we will act that decisively towards the next threat, whomever they may be. </p> <p>I did comment on the PG website, on the page of today's Jack Kelly column. I leave it to you whether you think I covered any or all of these themes. My comment follows:</p> <p><i>More often than not, the key to understanding foreign policy is to look at the domestic situation. President Obama's seeming half measures are what he thinks the American public is willing to accept as reasonable action right now. Are they sufficient to achieve the goal of "degrading" the forces of the Islamic State such that other nation's ground forces can deal with them? I don't know, that depends on a lot of factors I don't know about. </p> <p>But past that are bigger questions like what we hope to achieve with our foreign policy actions in general. Do we want to go to full blown war against IS? If the answer to that question is yes, then I also ask *why*? Do we think that killing thousands over there will make us safer at home? How many of those thousands we would kill would have come across the Atlantic to commit acts of terror here? And then the question is how many might come over to avenge the thousands of martyrs we would end up creating if we go to full blown war again in Iraq and apparently also Syria? We might try to remember the destruction in our country 19 men created in September of 2001. </P><p>Yes, we could have won Vietnam militarily. But what would that have accomplished geo-politically? Vietnam was not about a communist take over of the world any more than Iraq (II) was about keeping WMD's from being used by terrorists. But those two illusions killed thousands and tens of thousands of Americans. When do we start learning lessons that don't involve the deaths of American soldiers? </i></p> EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-2906979677966864162014-09-14T12:56:00.002-04:002014-09-14T12:56:54.698-04:00Jack Kelly complains about Obama's foreign policy, surprise!<p>Today's Jack Kelly column is <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/09/14/Jack-Kelly-Liberals-lose-the-high-moral-ground/stories/201409140078>"Jack Kelly: Liberals lose the high moral ground: They’re lying about GOP foreign policy"</a>. This column reads like school yard complaints with a bigger budget. It manages to have the snarkiness of Twitter but without 140 character limit. I only commented on a bit of it, although I did critique the comments of others there. Here is my comment on the PG.</p> <p>The subtitle of this column is "They’re lying about GOP foreign policy ". Where? Where is there any mention of "GOP Foreign Policy"? The bit about Rumsfeld? He wasn't setting GOP foreign policy, he himself had an idea for the occupation which was voted down by the then Republican President, George Bush (or Dick Cheney or Colin Powell or whomever, just not by a liberal/Democrat).</p> <p>Seriously, does Jack Kelly understand how nonsensical that subtitle is? </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-88118279734042350412014-08-17T12:17:00.000-04:002014-08-17T12:17:04.173-04:00Jack Kelly criticizes Obama again on Iraq, what a surprise<p>Jack Kelly continues (from last Sunday) his criticism of Barack Obama's current Iraq policy: <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/08/17/Jack-Kelly-The-Islamic-State-attacks-while-Obama-dithers/stories/201408160014>Jack Kelly: <b>The Islamic State attacks while Obama dithers:</b> The president still doesn’t understand the terrorist threat</a>. Now I don't specifically say Kelly is wrong about a need to get involved in this conflict, or that a consequence of not doing so could affect oil prices; in fact I don;t deal with those issues in the kind of depth they would really need. I simply point out we have a big level of responsibility for creating the circumstances for this situation (predating Obama) and oil prices may go up no matter what we do. Below is the comment I left on the PG website. </p> <p>Is this situation perhaps what a seemingly prophetic Colin Powell had in mind when he invoked the (so-called) Pottery Barn "rule" before we invaded Iraq in 2003? ("You break it, you bought it") I don't think Americans want to permanently occupy Iraq, nor do the oil producing states of the region want us there for the next fifty or a hundred years, or even one year more. It is certainly true that oil speculators and traders could use the actions of this Islamic State to drive up the international price of oil, but that can happen for almost any reason, including our re-occupying Iraq.</p> <p>It is true that we may well need to re-engage in Iraq to prevent a disaster, but doing so will not vindicate the various militarists on the right. It will be a further indictment of the Bush administration when he ignored the Pottery Barn rule of all our behalf's. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-14069370607223929422014-08-03T13:52:00.001-04:002014-08-03T13:52:59.207-04:00When did newspapers start issuing Sunday sermons? <p>Jack Kelly today dons his Rabbi shawl, and reminds us the Jews are the one true chosen people - <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/08/03/Satan-supports-Hamas-targets-civilians-while-Israel-tries-to-protect-them/stories/201408030107>"<b>Jack Kelly: Satan supports Hamas</b>Hamas targets civilians while Israel tries to protect them."</a>. This kind of editorial is the kind of thing that essentially says unless you agree with anything and everything we say, then you are a mixture of an Islamic zealot an a Nazi (and Kelly once again brings up how Hitler, all by himself, created the Islamic Brotherhood). The Amnesty International report I reference in my comment to Kelly column, by comparison, is a nice balance of appropriate condemnation of both sides. Here is my comment. </p> <p>I didn't know that the Post Gazette had decided to declare Judaism as the one true religion, or does Jack Kelly think that Judaism and Christianity are compatible, and the Jews are just a little confused? Meanwhile, he is telling the Muslim world, as well as the Hindu, Buddhists, all other religions, atheists and agnostics where they will go when they die and apparently how worthless they are when they are alive.</p> <p>I mean, I am no supporter of Hamas, but that doesn't mean I have to accept everything Israel does and embrace biblical prophecies if I reject Hamas and their methods. The despicable nature of Hamas's *documented* activities is quite clear, however the zeal of Israel and it's supporters may well have led them to exaggerate some of what Hamas has done, and in fact the zeal of at least some Israelis in carrying out their individual missions, and perhaps even the mission as whole, have been questioned by entities such as Amnesty International.</p> <p>http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/gaza-israel_b_5624401.html</p> <p>http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/017/2014/en/5b79b682-8d41-4751-9cbc-a0465f6433c3/mde150172014en.html</p> <p>Of course, people can always express opinions about Amnesty International and it motives. But the opinions expressed by conservatives about Amnesty and about my comment with also be read by independent readers (and voters), who will consider them in forming their opinions.</p> EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-28130945315538923452014-07-13T10:24:00.000-04:002014-07-13T10:24:19.455-04:00Jack Kelly vs (un-named) regulation<p>Today Jack Kelly takes on ... regulations: <A href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/07/13/The-high-cost-of-regulations/stories/201407130057><b>"Jack Kelly / The high cost of regulations</b> Congress should suspend all regs imposed since 2000 and assess whether they've been worthwhile"</a>. </P> <p>I suppose this is supposed to be a populist thing, but I find Kelly blaming all of our economic ills on regulations, with no better than a partisan jab at the increasing income gap, to be entirely unconvincing. Below is the comment I made on the online PG.</p> <p>Jack Kelly fails to name one example of a regulation he would see eliminated. That in and of itself should raise red flags.</p> <p>In the last thirty five or so years, there has been steady and even somewhat spectacular productivity growth. But wages at the median, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated. Women have gone to work, families have maxed out first credit cards and then the excess value in their homes in an effort to keep up a middle class standard of living and now those who still have jobs after the great recession started on President's Bush's watch are cutting way back on spending. That strikes me as equally or maybe a more plausible explanation for the slow down in the economy as regulations. But the question is why wages are not keeping pace with increases in productivity, why the increases are going almost entirely to the people at the top, why the wealth is not, as conservatives/Republicans repeatedly reference, "trickling down".</p> <p>Conservatives only bring this issue up during the Presidency of a Democrat, and always act as if it started at the beginning of the Democrats Presidency. In Obama's case, George Bush left him a ruined economy, totally mishandled by the Bush administration and the Republican Congress of January 2003 to December of 2006. The current gridlock caused by Republicans in Congress has stymied all efforts to improve the economy.</p> <p>Blaming regulations for problems started in the Reagan administration with anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-union and anti-middle class policies that were all designed to concentrate income and wealth in the hands of the 1% is the height of disingenuous commentary. . </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-59365488212857723742014-07-06T13:16:00.000-04:002014-07-06T13:16:21.471-04:00Jack Kelly is still a populist??? although I confess he is not wrong about Democrats corruption<p>So today Jack Kelly is still on the populist horse, with this column <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/07/06/Jack-Kelly-Regulations-for-the-rich/stories/201407060080>"Jack Kelly / Regulations for the rich <i>Crony capitalism infects Washington, especially Democrats</i>"</a> He points out all sorts of shifty things Democrats do, and I have to say I don't think he is wrong, at least about a lot of them. Still, I think there remains ideological difference between the parties. Now, are the Democrats as agressive about going after Wall Street as I would like? Nope, but they do still vote to keep food stamps (usually) and for women's reproductive rights (unless they are Catholic or some such thing). It's a pain being a liberal Democrat in this day and age, but it would be more embarrassing to be Republican. Here's my comment about Mr Kelly's column, first published on the PG online. </p> <p>OK, first of all, the funny thing is how conservatives go from calling Democrats wannabe Communists and/or Socialists (If Socialism can be stretched to include Social Security and/or Medicare as socialist programs, then the word is becoming nearly meaningless) to "Crony Capitalists". I thought Democrats hate capitalism, according to conservatives and Republicans.</p> <p>But I will say on one line of thought, I actually agree with Jack Kelly. The Democrats are pretty corrupt now. I mean, conservatives thought they caught Harry Reid red-handed in something with the Cliven Bundy thing (and solar somethings, yada yada). Of course they didn't, but I will say they did shed some (more) light on Reid's corrupt escapades in Nevada. And as far as I can see Nancy Pelosi and the majority of other Democrats in Congress are much the same as Reid, to varying degrees.</p> <p>The thing, in this regard I see no reason to think Congressional Republicans are any better than Democrats. If I am being honest, I believe the number of relatively uncorrupted members of Congress from either party is probably in the single digits. I think that is an unpleasant fact of life we have to deal with.</p> <p>That said, I will that the difference between the parties that I see is that Democrats of all stripes and ethical inclinations can be persuaded to come together to vote for measures that protect and aid the poor and disenfranchised. Now, that use to be true of some more moderate members of the Republican party as well, but seemingly that ended maybe 35 years or more ago.</p> <p>See, I could respect the Tea Party as a movement. If the rural poor don't want government aid, I am sure some accommodation could be made. But if Tea Party members really are poor, there is not much that can be done for them in terms of the federal income tax, they probably aren't paying it and in fact are probably getting refunds. So the Taxed Enough Already thing doesn't apply to them, at least on the federal level.</p> <p>And if the Tea Party people are middle class or rich, what are you complaining about? Living in this country has been good to you. You are pretending you are suffering, while the unemployed and poor in this country really are suffering? This faux populism thing is just kind of insulting to the real poor. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-55822840759203387412014-06-29T12:52:00.001-04:002014-06-29T12:52:36.890-04:00Short reply to Jakc Kelly today<p>I had a short reply to Jack Kelly today: <a Href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/06/29/Tea-Party-tea-leaves/stories/201406290042>Jack Kelly: Tea Party tea leaves: Liberals delude themselves about the uprising on the right</a>, although I tackled several other comments and/or replies:</p> <p>"Democrats soon may regret having turned a deaf ear."</p> <p>Jack Kelly once again predicts the coming triumph of the Tea Party (and/or the Republican party). How are President's McCain/Palin/Allen West/Bobby Jindal/Romney working out?</p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-76925295672773679392014-06-23T00:20:00.001-04:002014-06-23T00:20:37.962-04:00Jack Kelly 6/23/14 I commented on the PG online site on Sunday's Jack Kelly column <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/06/22/Hushing-up-Khattala/stories/201406220063#ixzz35QsPreHM>"Jack Kelly: They're hushing up Khattala. He might be able to reveal how Obama ended up arming extremists"</a>. What I said is copied below. <p>A few months or more ago I raised, on these comment threads, a particular issue about Benghazi (or more accurately repeated that others has raised it); I asked about what the CIA's role in the whole thing was. To a person, conservatives here on these threads accused me of trying to protect a lying President by distracting from those lies. Then today I read this in Jack Kelly's column: "We don’t know what CIA operatives at the Benghazi annex were doing. We do know extraordinary measures have been taken to keep them from talking about it."</p> <p>Sorry Jack, you are how many yeas too late to the party. The Obama administration got the guy responsible for Benghazi. If you want to say that he could tell conservatives about the Obama administration doing an "ran-Contra scandal on steroids" but you don't think it will happen unless he is released into the custody of Fox News, you go right on and say that.</p> <p>Apparently he will be a defendant in an ordinary criminal trial, so what he says will be a matter a public record. Now why we couldn't have captured rather than executed bin Laden and done this is beyond me, but this time the Obama administration is trying something new. So I am sure Khattala will have the opportunity to chat bout "ran-Contra scandal on steroids" if he so chooses. </p> <p>Past my initial comment is a "lively" back and forth between me and a conservative commenter. </p> EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-57383394922785210312014-06-16T12:27:00.001-04:002014-06-16T12:27:53.918-04:00Jack Kelly column 6/15/14 redux UPDATE 6/16/14: All of the long comments (including mine) criticizing <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2014/06/15/Cantor-ran-to-serve-the-elites/stories/201406150077>this Sunday's Jack Kelly column</a> have disappeared from the PG site. This doesn't happen with Reg Henry, Dan Simpson or Tony Norman. My only assumption has to be that Jack Kelly himself ordered them removed. How incredibly insecure the man must be to not be able to face any criticismEdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-4700236775215209722014-06-15T11:12:00.000-04:002014-06-16T12:22:22.465-04:00And from no where - I post again.<p>UPDATE 6/16/14: All of the long comments (including mine) criticizing Jack Kelly have disappeared from the PG site. This doesn't happen with Reg Henry, Dan Simpson or Tony Norman. My only assumption has to be that Jack Kelly himself ordered them removed. How incredibly insecure the man must be to not be able to face any criticism.</p> <p>So today Jack Kelly ruminates about the Brat win/Cantor loss <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2014/06/15/Cantor-ran-to-serve-the-elites/stories/201406150077>Jack Kelly: Cantor ran to serve the elites - Dave Brat’s populist message may scare Hillary</a>. It is an interesting topic, but what I find even more interesting is the Kelly embraces an anti big business spin. How long does he think th e Tea Party would survive he their billionaire sponsors abandoned them? But of course I am just jesting, the billionaires and the Tea Party love each other, and the billionaires think it is cute when the Tea Party rails against them. Below is a comment I posted on the PG website:</p> <p>This column is an interesting swerve into fantasy land for Jack Kelly. He is, as ever, always willing to sing the praises of the latest flash in the pan for conservatives/the Tea Party, and there is a long list. Michael Steele, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin (ever his favorite), and more recently Allan West and Ben Carson. I am surprised Kelly didn't suggest a Presidential run for David Brat yet.</p> <p>But I expect that the fact Brat is an economics professor totally (if only secretly) delights Tea Party members and their slavish supporters like Kelly. I mean, among the Tea Party's principles is a rejection of any sort of expert.. but they mean the other experts. It's OK as long as their expert says the right things (an unregulated free market doesn't need a minimum wage, oh and by the way illegal immigration depresses the wages of actual Americans - I paraphrase his remarks). If he admires Ayn Rand and copies Ludwig Von Mies, he is in. As ever, it doesn't matter if reality backs up Dr Brat's remarks, there will always be some data that can and already has been distorted to produce a study or two to support his ideas, and other pet economists to oppose the sea of howls of derision from the mainstream. And Jack Kelly will be there to unquestioningly repeat Brat's rhetoric.</p> <p>To me the really interesting thing is Kelly's brief attack on big business. Back in the nineties Pat Buchanan tried a similar thing, tapping into rural populist anger before the Tea Party was a gleam in the Koch brothers eyes. During another Democrat's Presidency (to the extent Clinton was not a DINO) Buchanan went after (believe it or not) income inequality. This surprisingly anti-big business (at its core) message garnered some support, although the culmination of Buchanan's efforts might have been his position on Florida's infamous "butterfly" ballot in 2000, where even Buchanan admits he siphoned off some of Gore's votes.</p> <p>It is just funny how Republicans know they can "say" anything they want and still take big business for granted. It that respect (alone) I can see a comparison between a naive Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) and David Brat. As one junior member in the House of Representatives, he can say anything he wants, but will be unable to get any legislation passed (not even for Virginia land for the "Boy Rangers" or for legislation on shutting down immigration). The one percent will encourage his rhetoric, even as it encourages conservatives to say the majority of the one percent is made up of athletes and Hollywood. They get a laugh out of that in the club every time.</p> EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-52110743402124192462014-04-06T13:44:00.000-04:002014-04-06T13:44:31.051-04:00Jack Kelly on Obamacare, even though I write about the media<p>This is, as is my habit, a copy of a comment I put on today's Jack Kelly column <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/04/06/The-coming-tsunami/stories/201404060034#ixzz2y84eOdI4> Jack Kelly: The coming tsunami - Democrats would be wise to bail out on Obamacare </a>. </p> <p>The irony of this column is that Jack Kelly may not be wrong about the Democrats taking a pounding in the coming midterms, but it has little to do with any failings of the ACA. The irony is that Republicans/conservatives are really good at appearing to be victims of a vast left wing conspiracy that of course does not exist. But there is a solid fraction of the population that always loves a good conspiracy theory, and of course also the huge majority of the population that doesn't care about politics (and doesn't read Jack Kelly), but can be scared into voting certain ways.</p> <p>The reason this is ironic is that Jack Kelly constantly talks about how ALL the media is liberal and in bed with the Democrats, faithfully reporting everything the Democrats want them to verbatim. Actually, the media pretty much reports most things most politicians (whether Democrat or Republican) say. but the news media is good at sniffing out more sensational stories. Stories about how SNAP (food stamps) is helping keep people from going hungry are nice and worth a few seconds on the TV news. but stories of food stamp fraud will play so much better, just like stories of investigations into murdered diplomats (how high does it go? Who knew what and when? Were they watching the murders on TX?) and stories of how the government health program is killing people will get so many more viewers. And it is pretty obvious no proof is needed, as long as there is an accusation from a Congress person, it will make the air.</p> <p>All these accusations of welfare and healthcare fraud and abuse that we hear now, does anyone ever wonder why we didn't hear them from January of 2001 through December of 2008? Sorry, I guess that is a rhetorical question.</p> <p>But the fact is that Republicans/conservatives are far better at getting their stories out into both the conservative and the mainstream media. Even the liberal media (such as it is) dutifully reports on conservative stories, if only to pick them apart.</p> <p>We all know that 85% of us are covered by health insurance at work, so the stories of skyrocketing premiums are only about the remaining 15%. Yes, some corporations with lots of minimum wage employees are cutting hours to avoid insuring their employees, but rather than blame the greed of the companies and their stock holders (who are overwhelming part of the 1%), Republicans screech that this is the fault of the ACA (and the media dutifully repeats every word). But the scope of the individual market for healthcare is relatively small, yet again Republicans are able to frighten huge masses of voters into thinking the ACA is going to take away their employer provided health care.</p> <p>I keep reading conservatives saying that the United States is being destroyed by Barack Obama, and giving us all these untrue reason why. Perhaps the United States is being destroyed, but I think it is because of all the conservative lies that permeate the media. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-26909493074540976212014-02-23T12:00:00.000-05:002014-02-23T12:00:46.507-05:00Jack Kelly today 2/23/14I posted the below on the comment section of today's (actually yesterday's online) Jack Kelly column <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2014/02/23/Jack-Kelly-The-end-is-nigh-Obamacare-may-tank-the-economy-within-weeks/stories/201402230015> "Jack Kelly: The end is nigh, with Obamacare the last straw (Obamacare may tank the economy within weeks)"</a> in the PG. Last I looked, it was "awaiting moderation". Maybe it will appear, maybe it shan't. I thought I would put it here anyway. <p>It is funny to see Jack Kelly play economist. I personally am constantly attacked if I try to introduce the least amount of economic ideas into the discussions here, yet I see none of the conservatives who attack me here, attacking Mr Kelly. I guess IOKIYAC. </p> <p>Kelly makes this assertion un-sourced "Enrollments fell 29 percent in January from December, with the pace of signups slowing as the month wore on." Why should we trust that statement? Kelly misidentified Larry Kocot as "of the Brookings Institution" when in fact he is a visiting fellow. In fact Mr Kocot was a senior adviser on Medicare in the bush Health & Human Services department. There is valid reason to think he has a political agenda. </p> <p>Jack Kelly says about Grady Means "Mr. Means isn’t a doomsayer who’s predicted 11 of the last two recessions. He isn’t trying to sell gold, silver or freeze-dried food." I don't exactly see anything that contradicts that statement on the web, although Mr Means himself wrote essentially this same column right before the Presidential election in 2012. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/25/us-economy-on-schedule-to-crash-march-2014/?page=all . Breitbart (the pillar of journalistic integrity) has since picked up Mr Means predictions. And actually the most amusing thing is that after Mr Kelly exonerates Mr Means, he references two quotes from "Trends Research Institute founder Gerald Celente". There are many who would say that Gerald Celente predicted 11 of the last two recessions, ABC News and future editor of the New York Times Magazine Hugo Lindgren among them. In fact, Mr Lindgren is credited with coining the term "doomsday porn" to describe Mr Celente (among others).</p> <p>You know, if Jack Kelly turns out to be right, then he (or Grady Means) will have pulled off the greatest prediction in history of predictions (well, maybe second to Dr Michael Burry, if Michael Lewis is to be believed). But I, for one, am not going to run off to rural Montana and invest in shotgun shells and freeze dried food. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-56003257543807126202014-02-16T10:21:00.002-05:002014-02-16T10:21:59.923-05:00Jack Kelly in the new year...Jack Kelly Today<p>On the advice of Pod Camp, I will say nothing of my absence on this blog. I will say tax season is in full swing, but I am still commenting furiously on the PG, when I see something comment worthy. And today I decided to go "old school", and revive my blog posts of my PG comments on Jack Kelly columns. So....</p> <p>So without further ado .... Today Jack Kelly thinks he has trapped Democrats in their support of job loss caused by "Obamacare", as detailed by the CBO; <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/columnists/2014/02/16/Spinning-the-CBO/stories/201402160017>"Spinning the CBO: The latest analysis further discredits Obamacare"</a>. I immediately found a couple of economists who disagree. </p> <p>This would be exciting if it were any kind of new and significant find. However it is an issue that economists have already acknowledged, but say will not bring about the apocalypse. In general, they say, the positive effects of the ACA (increasing access to healthcare for the poor, allowing some with multiple jobs to drop one job because they would have independent access to health care) outweighs the negative effects of not taking on additional income because of drops in *all* subsidies or aid to the poor.</p> <p>And by the way, the poor almost never have the option, on any given day, or either accepting a significant raise or taking a better job. Any conservative who says the poor would rather stay lazy that accept a high paying job because they will lose the food stamps, section 8, Obamacare and Obamaphone is doing no more than repeating the latest Fox News "let's whip up our base into a frenzy". The way the "undeserving, lazy" poor can increase their income is if the take a second job, work 60-70 hours a week.</p> <p>So as I say, this issue has already been addressed by economists who have already studied the issue.</p> <p>http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116613/obamacare-critics-still-tell-just-one-side-jobs-story</p> <p>http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/stupidity-in-economic-discourse/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0</p> <p>We should understand Kelly's final quote about Democratic spin is in fact furious spin itself, entirely distorting the findings of the CBO. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-82700563654736684592013-11-24T12:08:00.001-05:002013-11-24T12:08:33.056-05:00Jack Kelly Sunday 11/24/13 - Jack Kelly - Sudden PopulistThis a copy of a comment I made on Jack Kelly's 11/24/13 column in the PG <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2013/11/24/Party-of-the-rich-Obama-policies-have-been-helping-fat-cats/stories/201311240124>"Party of the rich: Obama policies have been helping fat cats"</a>. Does anyone think that Democrats have been getting their way for the last fives years, the ACA non-withstanding (and perhaps in fact exhibit one, considering the single payer option)? Anyway, here it is: <p>I am sure many of us remember Pat Buchanan talking about income inequality and fair trade over free trade in the 1990's. That did not make him particularly a friend of the working man, and Jack Kelly gives us no reason to think a Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin administration would be one now. He just sees a angle to attack Barakc Obama on.</p> <p>It is certainly true that Wall Street has not done badly in the Obama administration. Anyone who watches the documentary "Inside Job" would quickly understand why. And I have long advocated paying attention to what Glenn Greenwald was saying, years before Edward Snowden, but certainly in the Obama administration. Obama has not been the hero liberals thought he would be. Maybe with the utter and total obstructionism of Republicans, he would not have been anyway, but what seems to make things worse is he doesn't seem interested in even trying.</p> <p>All that said, Republican politicians, pundits and Jack Kelly seem to think that both liberals and their own readers are easily persuaded idiots. Whatever the failings of Barack Obama in specific and the Democrats in general, laying the blame for everything that has happened in the last five years solely at their feet is ignoring reality. I mean, Jack Kelly is right that the rich have gotten richer in the last five years, the poor have gotten poorer and the rich have skated on any consequences from the near depression they essentially caused. But when you think about it, there was some short time period, five or eight months, when the Democrats had a super majority in the Senate, which was mostly squandered with debate over the health care bill. Before that was the stimulus bill, which in the end a couple of Republicans voted for because even the Republicans couldn't let themselves go down in history as the party that allowed America to slide into another great depression (remember George Bush also spent hundreds of billions on that before he left office). Mind you, the couple of Republicans demanded so many compromises of a stimulus bill that was brought to Congress already too weak, facts conservatives like Jack Kelly conveniently forget. </p> <p>But past the time when Democrats had a super majority in the Senate, Republicans had set records for filibusters in the Senate (really since January 2007). Then in January 2011 they took control of the House. Between those two facts, it is hard to escape the conclusion that any legislation that has passed Congress has had to be at least agreeable to Republicans as well as Democrats. Everything Jack Kelly is saying about income inequality and the rich getting richer is as much if not more the result of Republican policies and efforts.</p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-83766232406007805652013-11-10T01:37:00.000-05:002013-11-10T01:37:14.930-05:00Kelly tries to capitalize on Obamacare 11/09/13<p>This is a comment I made on the PG on this Sunday's Jack Kelly column <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/jack-kelly/2013/11/10/More-lies-about-health-care/stories/201311100059>More lies about health care Now the president is lying about past lies</a>.</p> <p>Let's be clear what we are talking about here. The insurance policies that are being cancelled are policies that do not conform to the rules of the ACA, in that they have limited yearly or lifetime maxes, or the deductibles are out of bounds, what have you. You understand that these letters are not coming from the government, they are coming from private health insurance companies. To me it is perfectly clear the insurance companies are trying to lock customers into relatively expensive plans while the ACA website is still a mess. They are trying to take advantage of the inability of customers to shop around at this moment, trying to trap people for a year or more in a more expensive policy. </p> <p>This is happening because Obama did not want to legislate the health insurance companies out of existence. But does Jack Kelly acknowledge this? </p> <p>Now clearly when Obama said that if you like your health insurance plan, you can keep, he essentially had in mind the people who get their health insurance through their employer. And I believe for the most part that is still true. As I understand it, there are some employers throwing people off insurance, forcing them to get it through the ACA. I believe they will pay a penalty for having done so, not to mention as the economy gets better their employees may well move to a different job. </p> <p>But the interesting thing is how extreme Mr Kelly's rhetoric is. As conservatives claim Obama is a pathological liar, it pulls the dialogue of the media outlets that actually want to report the news to the right. We should all remember the summer of 2010 when conservatives started a relentless drumbeat of how Obama hadn't done enough for the unemployed. This was echoed by the Tea Party candidates and probably could be found on Youtube if someone looked hard enough. That conservative drumbeat was commented on by the CNN's and MSNBC's, and then they tried to analyze and in so doing, legitimized it as the dominant talking point of the midterms (to be fair, Democrats failed spectacularly to offer any counter message). Now conservatives are trying to do the same thing, pull CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN to the right with their relentless and baseless propaganda. </p> <p>The thing is that George W Bush claimed Iraq had WMD's, and that claim cost 4,487 American military deaths, as well as probably over 100,000 Iraq's dead. I don't see conservatives apologizing for that, I see them blaming liberals or distracting us with their complaints about Obama.</p> EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-47728406038042178152013-10-06T09:40:00.002-04:002013-10-06T10:51:13.697-04:00Jack Kelly in/on the shutdown<p>This is my comment on todays Jack Kelly column <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/jack-kelly/shutting-down-the-democrats-706343/>"Shutting down the Democrats: They have more to lose than they might think"</a>. Let me note the PG online has gone behind a paywall; you might get a few as five clicks in month, so keep that in mind. </p> <p>"This "shutdown" is over Obamacare, which most Americans dislike." I heard a number, which now I forget, but a Google search indicated 2.8 million people visited the online exchange web sites in the first couple of days (actually that number may be low, a different source said 2.5 million visited the web sites <i>in New York alone, on the first day</i>). That is certainly not "most Americans" but it is a sizable number of people, all of whom presumably do not have health insurance now. Jack Kelly wants to see 2.8 million specific Americans go without health insurance. </p> <p>"Americans blame Republicans more for the "shutdown," polls indicate, but by smaller margins than in the past. Most of the few who will suffer real pain typically vote Democratic." I have no idea if the first sentence is true, but giving Mr Kelly the benefit of the doubt, that is probably because of partisanship and literally years of the Republicans saying "Obamacare is bad" without giving specific verifiable reasons why it is. And the second sentence is Jack Kelly implying that he does not care if people who vote democratic suffer real pain or not. </p> <p>I have yet to meet a Republican/conservatives who addresses the issue, in an aggregate manner, of every other high income country - all of Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand - having a universal health care system that costs less per capita and has better public health outcomes. Yes, when asked about this Republicans make up mythical wait times and invariably talk about foreign citizens who come here. But never do they deal with the comparison of the entire systems statistic for statistic. </p> <p>Now that reliance on the foreign visitor anecdote should tell us two things, neither of which Republicans/conservatives explicitly admit. First, pretty much by definition a foreigner who comes here for treatment is coming for treatment for a exotic or at at least very serious and *expensive* condition, meaning they are wealthy themselves. And second, no one denies that at the top price level, we have the best health care in the world. But literally 99% of Americans can not afford that level of health care. In some senses we have three levels of health care. One is for the wealthy, the second, being trimmed away every day, is for the middle class with health insurance, and the third is no health insurance, which is the one where a visit to the emergency room mean that if your credit wasn't ruined before, it is now. And you better not have a chronic condition, because then the emergency room will stabilize you and release you to die some time in the future, with those tens of thousands of medical bills. </p> <p>That Republicans/conservatives see the pre-ACA system as more desirable than the ACA, with its increasing share of the GNP and large numbers of people dying prematurely and/or going personally bankrupt, tells you quite a lot. I will say that Republicans do have plan to reform health care, I guess. The only one anyone has mentioned involves allowing health insurance companies to sell insurance across State lines. Wait a minute, you say, doesn't Aetna show up in multiple state? Yes they do, but they have to follow the rules of each particular state. So the Republican plan is to allow insurance companies to follow the rules of the *least* strict state to sell insurance. And noticing the natural consolidation of the banking industry (based on the big guys gobbling up the little guys), what we would be left with only a few huge health insurance companies, unanswerable to anyone below the millionaire level. </p> <p>That is the real meaning of this column.</p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-4897721367947994942013-09-15T14:10:00.002-04:002013-09-15T14:10:46.052-04:00Kelly relives the glory of the cold war<p>My long overdue return to blogging, and yes, it is a Jack Kelly column. Today's column, of course, "<a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/jack-kelly/humiliated-by-putin-703419/>Humiliated by Putin</a>. The below is the comment I made about it. </p> <p>I hadn't realized the Cold War had never ended. Mr. Kelly's yearning for that time is almost palpable. </p> <p>Who was it who suggested Syria turn its chemical weapons over to international control? Come on, say it out loud, we all know ... even Jack Kelly admits this "So when another stupid thing Secretary of State John Kerry said provided an opening, the Russians pounced.". Here is a conundrum, if this is/was such a self-evidently clever policy move for the Russians, why didn't they just propose it? Why wait for John Kerry to make the mistake he might never make? Suddenly Jack Kelly's estimate of the cleverness of Vladimir Putin seems on shaky ground. </p> <p>And let's notice the appropriation of the phrase "low information voter" by conservatives. <a href=http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/07/dumb_and_dumber?page=0%2C2>George Lakoff identifies the phrase</a> as having originated with liberals, and to be fair the studies showing (in mixed results) the largely lower knowledge Fox News viewers have of current events (I would add slanted to the description) as well as the voting pattern of States like Kansas and Texas which have voters who are in the majority poor give some credence to the notion that a majority of low information voters are Republicans. That said, Dr Lakoff does bring up two uncomfortable points for liberals, a) why can't there be Democratic low information voters, and what is the implication if there are (as there surely are) and b) the term is insulting, even or especially to a person who makes a quick voting decision based on their gut choice. </p> <p>Maybe we should let conservatives keep the phrase. </p> <p>Never the less, I think it is worth asking Jack Kelly what his evidence for "President Obama expects the news media to help him persuade "low information" voters that this catastrophe is really a triumph." is. He's not just describing what the White House is doing, he is actually reading the President's mind. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-60020802238896722712013-07-28T12:31:00.001-04:002013-07-28T12:31:51.584-04:00Kelly and I agree ... sort of ... well, not where it counts <p>This weeks Jack Kelly column <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/jack-kelly/the-nsas-close-shave-697158/>"The NSA's close shave: For now, let's hope that government incompetence will protect our privacy"</a> is interesting for the reasons I describe below. What is below is a copy of a comment (mostly unedited here) I made on the online PG edition.</p> <p>I found this Jack Kelly piece pretty interesting. First of all, I found I agreed with large parts, although not his ultimate conclusion.</p> <p>Second, I will encourage people to read this <a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/25/democratic-establishment-nsa> Glenn Greenwald Guardian UK OpEd piece </a> where he asserts that the Republicans do not block every Obama program as Democrats like to say. On this bill, as Jack Kelly suggested, the House Democratic and Republican leadership made common cause in voting against this bill. Now, if I say it should give the White House and Nancy Pelosi pause to be making common cause with John Boehner, maybe I am being too partisan. But I think I am on safe ground when I say that this White House has a considerable problem with its whole "anti-terrorism" program, that is increasingly looking like a domestic comprehensive surveillance program.</p> <p>Third of all, I am confused by Kelly opposition to the Amash amendment. He says it "would have removed the legal authority for the National Security Agency to collect communications "metadata" on U.S. citizens." Well, then he goes onto to clarify the amendment would "permit surveillance only if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decides that individual business records are relevant to a specific investigation." Frankly I thought that was how the Patriot Act was supposed to work anyway, that if a suspected or suspicious foreign person contacted a US citizen (at least on US soil), the NSA would make a request to monitor that US citizens "metadata" to the FISA court. I guess that was blown wide open (or made wide shut) in 2006, dropping the FISA court part if it had ever been there. As I have been reading, there was a debate to that effect in 2006, the last year the Republicans held Congress under Bush.</p> <p>But if we are not going to rely on the FISA court to at least keep a record when it rubber stamps every NSA request, then what does Jack Kelly suggest we should do? He suggests nothing, which I suspect will always be is position. </p> <p>This *is* an interesting Kelly piece, in that Republicans appear to be tying themselves in knots over whether to consistently oppose the President or in this case to preserve the ability to spy on American citizen for the next Republican President who comes down the line (whoever that might be and whenever that might be). And some Democrats show how little they care for what are supposed to be their principles, and rubber stamp White House that also should be following principles. </p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-40504551026497754602013-07-25T20:36:00.000-04:002013-07-25T20:36:22.098-04:00Martin/Zimmerman again<a border="0" href="http://lilburghers.com/pittsburghers-blogging-for-justice" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1315.photobucket.com/albums/t597/mrsgregwillis/PittsburghersBloggingForJusticeButton_zpse176cbed.jpg" /></a><br /> <textarea cols="20" rows="4"><a border="0" href=" http://lilburghers.com/pittsburghers-blogging-for-justice target="_blank"><img src=" http://i1315.photobucket.com/albums/t597/mrsgregwillis/PittsburghersBloggingForJusticeButton_zpse176cbed.jpg"/></a></textarea> <p>So I am trying to participate in this "Blogging Trayvon" or "blogging for justice". I have been writing about this incident on the PG OP/Ed comment section for months now. I have watched those who supported George Zimmerman evolve over those months. Many started generally saying that while it was self-defense Zimmerman should not have gotten out of his car, but after the verdict they hardened into a positon that by attacking Zimmerman, Martin sealed his own fate. This is what the gun rights advocates (or absolutists, as some say) seem to feel.</p> <p>One thing that has been interesting to watch is the efforts to make a logical case for profiling Trayvon Martin. Actually this effort to use logic to justify one's position permeates the PG comment pages. There is a great deal of (something like) "if they would only take responsibility for themselves" and in the Trayvon Martin comments (something like) "It's a fact that African Americans commit (some number, I have seen as high as 76%) of (some crime - robbery, murder, etc)". This is all done in isolation, as if the only history we have are these crime statistics, there is no other history or context.</p> <p>But this brings me to a first point about context. Much of what we know about what happened comes from George Zimmerman, and I would suggest he has strong incentives to paint himself in the best light possible. But there are a couple of things he said when he was talking to the police dispatcher that I want to note. First of all, early in the conversation he said "these assholes always get away". Shortly after that he tells the dispatcher Martin is running, and Zimmerman starts running after him (what he was thinking I can not imagine). The dispatcher asks Zimmerman if he is following Martin (as Zimmerman is evidently breathing hard) and when Zimmerman says yer the dispatcher utters the now famous "OK, we don't need you to do that". </p> <p>I want to pause briefly to point out that Martin did not have a history of violence that I am aware of. Some possible petty theft and marijuana use, but not violence (and most people will say that marijuana promote lethargy, not violence). On the other hand, Zimmerman had once shoved a cop and once had domestic violence charges leveled at him. These did not come to much, but there they are, along with the mixed martial arts training and the concealed handgun. </p> <p>So at that point that particular evening Zimmerman had lost Trayvon Martin (or so he said) and is supposedly returning to his vehicle. Trayvon Martin reappears. According to Zimmerman Martin "sucker punches" Zimmerman from behind, but it doesn't seem like that is born out by the testimony of Rachel Jeantel, who was on the phone with Martin up to the final confrontation.</p> <p>We already know that Martin had tried to run away from Zimmerman. Why had Martin returned? Well, one possibility is that Martin had turned in a thug bent on beating Zimmerman to death (despite having no history of violence). Another possibility is that Martin, unfamiliar with the neighborhood, had gotten lost trying to get home, and in desperation had gone back towards where he had seen the creepy guy since he thought the house he was staying at was back that way.</p> <p>So we have this claim by Zimmerman that Martin sucker punched him, which is made doubtful by other testimony. What if what actually happened is Zimmerman repeated to Martin a version of the thing he had said earlier to the dispatcher - "You are not going to get away with it"? What if to make his point Zimmerman life his shirt to show a gun concealed in his waistband? What if he did all that without identifying himself as a neighborhood watch volunteer who had call the police?</p> <p>If those things were true, it is easy to see that Martin, already frightened, might feel his worst fears were confirmed, that he was dealing with a crazy person about to kill him for no apparent reason. Martin, only 17, might well have reacted instead of asking what was going on. As a member of the football team, Martin would have had some experience with tackling a person and taking him down to ground. Being terrified at that moment, Martin would had reserves of adrenaline and the training needed to overpower a heavier man (whose fitness at the time is apparently an open question), could well have knocked Zimmerman to the ground and if they were on the sidewalk (at least one witness put them on the grass, but whatever), could have wrung Zimmerman's chimes. </p> <p>Am I justifying Zimmerman's claim of self defense? No I am suggesting what seems the strongest possibility is that Zimmerman provoked the situation at every step, right up to the point the kid did not cooperate by collapsing to the ground crying. Zimmerman played with fire and it got away from him and bit him in the ass (so to speak).</p> <p>Much was made in the trial that Zimmerman had no obvious hatred of African Americans. Perhaps not, but how should we look at Zimmerman's automatic assumption that the suspicious figure he saw, who he knew was black, was "getting away" with something? The insidious casual racism can be seen as worse, in that it is so ingrained that we can overlook it. Supposedly at least a couple of the jurors started deliberations leaning towards a guilty verdict for Zimmerman (either of second degree murder or manslaughter), but were persuaded otherwise by the rest of the jury. And as I said earlier, even here in Pittsburgh, commenters on the PG online refuse to look at the totality of the situation of African Americans, instead only seeing violent criminals or at best welfare cheats and abusers. This is a problem that seemingly has been made worse by the election of an African American President during an economic downturn that has swollen the ranks of the unemployed and the welfare rolls. </p> <p>The other point I want to make is how this all fits in with the logic of the gun debate. Gun rights advocate want to say that this has nothing to do concealed carry law laws or the stand your ground laws, except to prove that they work. But I think that gun rights advocates have based a lot of their arguments on the notions that gun owners are responsible, and therefore to do not need to be regulated. But we know that the neighborhood watch had training that said volunteers should not follow and especially should not confront suspicious people. We know the police dispatcher essentially reminded and reinforced that point with George Zimmerman that night. We can reasonably assume the purpose of saying those things to volunteers was to avoid the risk of injury to either volunteer or suspect. Yet Zimmerman ignored his training and what the dispatcher told him. </p> <p>"Only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun". So sayeth the NRA. But was Zimmerman a good guy with a gun? Does a good guy with a gun take unnecessary chances with people's lives? As I am sure others have concluded, George Zimmerman, taking chances and with a casual racism, went from neighborhood watch good guy with a gun to reckless vigilante, the guy who kept Martin from zlways getting away with it. Problem was, Martin did nothing except maybe get scared and then killed when he tried to defend himself.</p> <p>What responsibilities does concealed carry place on you? In the State of Florida, apparently very few. And if things do go bad and a black man is shot, you can be confident people will decide he brought it on himself. </p> EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-67126586586558807542013-07-18T23:07:00.000-04:002013-07-18T23:07:16.003-04:00What can be said about ZImmerman?<p>I believe several Pittsburgh bloggers are posting about the Zimmerman/Martin case tonight, unless I have missed them doing some earlier time. Whether or not I might have missed the group, I am doing this tonight. </p><p> Like so many others, I have been following this case. It certainly seems to have had a polarizing effect, down predictable party and liberal/conservative lines. For liberals, Zimmerman profiled Martin, decided he was up to no good and in danger of getting away with whatever he had done, and literally hunted him down. For conservatives, Zimmerman was merely doing his neighborhood watch duties, apparently thought Martin would elude police, and so followed Martin. </p><p>What seems like undisputed facts are that somehow Martin approached Zimmerman and took him by surprise. I do not know if any words passed between them, whether maybe Zimmerman showed Martin that he had a gun in his waistband or a holster, but we do know the two proceeded to start fighting. I think at least one witness said the two were rolling in grass, one or more may have supported Zimmerman's story about Martin being on top of him, another one or more may have said Zimmerman was on top of Martin (possibly post gun shot). Martin may have been fighting harder than Zimmerman expected, possibly because Martin was fighting a man who he thought was about to shoot him. In this context, one can make a case for both the man and the boy invoking self defense, but only one of them had access to lethal force. </p><p>Having said all that, I actually want to step back and discuss events directly prior to the fatal confrontation. I want to talk about rules governing our behavior. I know that saying "I was only following orders" is practically an archetype of a certain form of (perhaps bureaucratic) evil, yet I will say I think many of the individual acts of evil in history come from people deciding to ignore orders. The My Lai massacre leaps to mind immediately, although the specific orders in that situation may have been somewhat ambiguous.</p><p>But my point in bringing up orders is that as a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman had a set of parameters that were supposed to govern his activities while watching the neighborhood. He was supposed to be the eyes and ears of the police, but he was not supposed to pursue and absolutely not supposed to confront. Yet when Zimmerman left his vehicle to follow Martin that night, he knew he was risking confronting Martin. Why would the neighborhood watch rules say not to follow and risk confronting someone suspicious? Exactly because of what happened next.</p><p>In a way, the Zimmerman trial is a simplified version of the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration alleged Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that it was going to give to terrorists in the near future. After we invaded, we did not find any WMD's. I maintain that if you looked at the total history of the weapons inspections after the Gulf War and the sanctions, unless you literally had a nuclear bomb or canister of sarin gas in front of you, it simply was not credible that Iraq had any kind of WMD's, and that's what turned out to be the case. Yet George Bush was never held accountable for thousands of American deaths, and as many as a hundred thousand or more Iraqi deaths. </p> <p>Similarly, George Zimmerman decided not only that Trayvon Martin looked suspicious, but that he must have committed crimes in the past, and was looking to commit a crime in the immediate future. All that based on zero evidence connected to Martin himself and zero evidence of any crime Zimmerman had heard about occurring that night or anything Martin did besides walk. Zimmerman then departed his car in direct violation of neighborhood watch training as well as what the police neighborhood watch coordinator told him on the phone at that moment. Yet Zimmerman is not going to be held responsible for violating his instructions and the eminently predictable death that resulted from his actions.</p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-7182732587639803772013-07-07T12:07:00.000-04:002013-07-07T12:12:51.054-04:00After a week's delay, Jack opines ...<p>Below is a copy of a comment I made on the PG website about this weeks' <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/jack-kelly/obamacare-on-hold-694590/>Jack Kelly column, "Obamacare on hold"</a> Curiously, last Sunday's Kelly print column never appeared online. No idea what that means.</p> <p>I read somewhere that the election was the major reason for this new delay in implementing part of the ACA. Apparently a number of companies decided maybe Mitt Romney had a chance, and he *was* promising to repeal Obamacare (although *how* he would do that was not clear). So businesses are behind on their reading and taking the steps necessary to implement their part of the ACA. <a href=http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/delay-of-employer-mandate-need-not-delay-obamacare-b9948550z1-214437211.html>And in fact businesses should be glad that the administration is giving them more breathing room.</a></p> <p><a href=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/07/05/on-undermining-obamacare/>But Republicans/conservatives/Tea Party Types are determined to undermine national universal healthcare as best they can, even though they have *never* had a coherent plan to replace it</a>.</p><p><a href=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/03/republican-party-demise-continues>In fact, some say it is reasonable to say the entire party is now irrational</a>.</p> <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/the-great-gerrymander-of-2012.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.>But of course gerrymandering will insure that Republicans will keep the House for decades to come (no matter what is done with the filibuster in the Senate)</a>. EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-37228259830547119072013-06-23T11:31:00.001-04:002013-06-23T11:31:24.844-04:00I'm back, though "Jack's back" would sound better<p>Jack Kelly is an Opinion section columnist, so he has no obligation to reveal his sources for his claims (and some commenters here will say his sources are the only unbiased sources in the media universe). Today's column<a href=www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/jack-kelly/we-work-for-the-government-692755/>"We work for the government - And we just want to help ... ourselves"</a> is a good example.</p> <p>Looking around the internet, the only source I found for Mr Kelly's claim that we have spent more on the war on poverty is the Heritage Foundation, and their listing for their source: "research".</p> <p>This paper ran an opinion piece by the co-director of Pitt's Office of Child Development on Head Start on March 24th of this year, which acknowledged how kids in and out of Head Start at the end of first grade seem to be doing the same, but said that later the Head Start kids do better. Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't, but surely Kelly was aware of it, and it is quite rude of him to ignore it. </p> <p>Ms Englebrcht's (or Engelbrecht, it appears both ways on the internet) group started to fight voter fraud curiously only finds fraud as "largely a Democratic party problem" (from the "True the Vote" Wikipedia page)(again, so commenters here will say that only democrats committing vote fraud accurately reflects reality). Her group has been accused of voter intimidation, which if it occurs only of Democratic voters amounts to working for one party, which is to say one candidate in an election. Among other claims, True the Vote apparently stated (and I recall Jack Kelly claiming) that voters were being bused in to swing the recall election in Wisconsin. <a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/us/politics/groups-like-true-the-vote-are-looking-very-closely-for-voter-fraud.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>No license plate of a bus was ever given, apparently</a>. Ms Englebrecht's supposedly primarily educational group does this, and then complains it is being examined for engaging in political activity?</p> <p>This group True the Vote was formed out of a Tea Party group King Street Patriots. Was a member of KSP ever involved in domestic terrorism? Evidently the FBI would like to know, but Jack Kelly would stomp his boot on the necks of FBI agents, intimidating them when they try to do their jobs. And by the way, Ms. Englebrecht's shop has a license to make guns. Commenter's around here complain the ATF doesn't do its job, Jack Kelly complains when it does.</p> <p>Show me a driver who doesn't speed (knowing full well it is against the law), and then tell me about about breaking federal laws.</p>EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30020334.post-61624457191967344612013-02-24T16:06:00.002-05:002013-02-24T16:06:22.059-05:00Harper and Ravenstahl<p>I have been wanting to say something about the resignation of Nate Harper since it happened. It should be significant for the Mayoral primary coming up, except that Bill Peduto and Michael Lamb are simply going to cancel each other out, and Ravenstahl will win re-election. </p> <p>But here's the thing about Nate Harper. I wondered back in 2007 whether Nate Harper was somehow the administration's apologist if not fall guy (http://cognitivedissonancepittsburgh.blogspot.com/2007/10/boy-who-would-be-mayor.html). One thing significant to me about the story about Ravenstahl's guard detail making up to a hundred grand was Nate Harper's comment (made presumably with a straight face) that the Mayor works from six in the morning to after 1 or 2 am the next morning. A) that statement was made while the Mayor was still married and B) it made me wonder what the Mayor had on Harper that Harper would stick his neck out for the Mayor like that. I guess maybe now we know. </P> EdHeathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09109361235271107574noreply@blogger.com0